She fired two grenades. The hull exploded outward and she was swept up in the torrent of escaping air. Her body slammed against the edge of the hull and spun out of control. She saw stars, and then nothing.
24
Even in zero-g it hurt to move. Every time Jack shifted in his seat he seemed to bump something, which sent shivers of pain through his body.
One glance in the mirror had revealed that he looked even worse than he felt. The meds he was on had been sent over from Normandy and were usually reserved for use planetside. Jack didn’t know a lot about Astral medicine, but he’d heard rumors that Corps drugs could keep troopers fighting even after they’d lost any two of their four limbs. Looking down at his suited body, he was pleased that limb-loss hadn’t been a part of his ordeal.
But he wished that his drugs could dull the pain just a little bit more.
After the Centauri ambush at Laika the EF had gone to wartime standards, which brought an end to such luxuries as light duties or recovery time. Jack was a pilot. Terra needed pilots in this instant war. So Jack was drugged up, kept alert, and put in the cockpit.
He altered course to port, sticking with his standard search pattern, doing a quick check of visual, flight controls, and hunt controls. No telling if any Centauri stealth ships still lurked here in low Laikan orbit, and Terra had learned all too suddenly the danger of underestimating its oldest and largest colony.
The massive orb of Anubis filled half the sky overhead, a crescent of brilliant cloud bands haloing the shadow of the night side. It was dawn on the surface of Laika below, although at Jack’s altitude Sirius had risen more than an hour ago.
Ahead to port, Jack glanced briefly at the broken remains of the destroyer Kiev hanging at an unnatural angle in her final, decaying orbit. Earlier Hawk flights had already searched the dead ship and salvaged what they could—Jack was glad to have missed that duty. Beyond Kiev, half of the cruiser Admiral Tojo was slowly tumbling end over end. These two hulks offered visible evidence of Terran losses, but they weren’t the only casualties.
The invasion ships Gallipoli and Sicily had both been destroyed by stealth attacks—Gallipoli with the brigadier on board, Sicily with the admiral—and nothing remained of either vessel. The carrier Athena had met a similar fate before she could break orbit. Lepanto and Partisan had collided and burned up together in the atmosphere, and Rapier had gone down in flames.
Of all the losses, it was the little fast-attack craft that affected him the most. Apparently half the crew had made it out alive, led by Breeze as the only surviving officer. He was relieved to know that she was alive, but he still felt a real pang of loss. Rapier’s captain had seemed a real upstanding guy. And Jack clearly remembered seeing the face of the blonde strike officer during his rescue on Cerberus.
Even in the madness of the evacuation Jack could remember as she led the Kristiansand survivors out into the street, got them to their escape pods, and then rejoined the battle. His last image was of her disappearing into the dust and smoke, firing her assault rifle.
Jack owed his life to her.
But the time for remorse was later—he still had a job to do. The Centauri forces had scattered as quickly as they had attacked, and the EF was hunkered down in open space above the Anubian ecliptic. They would be moving into deep space soon, but until then pilots like Jack had to search the battlefield for anything of tactical value.
Laikan traffic had been routed elsewhere by the authorities, who were desperately trying to distance themselves as far as possible from the attack. Jack’s display revealed the two pairs of star fighters that were maintaining combat patrol around the battlefield, as well as the two Hawks on ASW duty.
There were still echoes in the Bulk of the gravimetric attacks conducted by both sides, and he wondered idly which knuckles had been Terran capital ships, and which had been Centauri stealth ships. There was grim satisfaction in the knowledge that four enemy vessels had been scattered versus only three friendlies, but hull counts didn’t always add up to victory. The loss of a carrier was a serious blow, even though some of her star fighters had made it safely to Artemis after the battle. The loss of two invasion ships, however—and with them nearly half of the Expeditionary Force’s entire brigade—had seriously undermined Terra’s ability to wage war in Sirius.
With the admiral and the brigadier dead, lots of people weren’t even sure who was in command.
The biggest Centauri hulk loomed ahead, a battle cruiser. Its once-gleaming hull was blackened and charred by multiple impacts, but it was surprisingly intact. Unlike the smashed remains of Kiev and Admiral Tojo, this enemy ship appeared to have weathered the onslaught with fortitude. There were no gaping holes in the hull, no fatal impacts that had forced its crew to abandon ship. A smaller Centauri combatant had been destroyed in the battle—its debris cloud was fairly easy to track—and he wondered why the bigger ship hadn’t suffered the same fate.
Closer to the dead battle cruiser he maneuvered carefully to avoid the thickening debris cloud. Some recognizable pieces belonged to Terran star fighters, but most of the odd scraps here and there were just twisted, tortured hunks of metal and plastic. Jack sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat to reach for his water bulb.
Movement flickered at the edge of his vision. There was an object tumbling slowly through space off the port bow and getting close. The object was dark, but with each rotation one end of it flashed dully in the Sirian sunlight. Curious, he dropped his visor and tapped the visual lock button on the side of his helmet. A red square appeared on the inside of the visor, marking the bearing and relaying the information to the Hawk’s computer.
He activated the viewer and zoomed in for a better look.
It was a body, wearing a black, bulky spacesuit. The dull flash was the faceplate catching the sunlight. Jack watched for a moment and wondered idly why the Centauris had such dark suits and such shiny ships.
Then he noticed the assault rifle tethered to the suit’s waist.
His eyes went wide.
Jack hauled the stick over to port. Moments later he slowed to match the velocity of the figure, gauging visually as it approached. He tapped at his thrusters, delicately maneuvering while keeping safely clear. Soon the figure was hovering next to the Hawk, still turning slowly end over end.
He looked for any sign of life. Aside from the steady tumble, there was no movement. No lights on the suit indicating functionality, yet it appeared intact. Jack frowned. Technically his mission didn’t include casualty retrieval. He looked at the dark suit again, and a single thought struck him:
If it was his body tumbling end over end like that, in a slowly decaying orbit over a foreign world, would he want it left behind?
Closing his faceplate and switching to suit life-support, Jack unstrapped and pushed his way back into the Hawk’s cargo area and into the tiny airlock. The routine movement sent waves of pain through his broken body. His breathing was heavy during the twenty seconds required to evacuate the air, then the airlock light switched to red. He tethered himself to the ship and opened the outer door.
As the protective door slid away, Jack’s stomach rose up to his throat. Looking out at space from the safety of a cockpit was one thing. Staring out into the abyss, into the infinite nothingness of space—that was something else. He found himself unable to move. Grabbing one of the airlock handles, he stared at the three meters separating him from the tumbling trooper.
It looked like three light years.
His ribs ached from rapid breathing.
Come on, Jack, he told himself. Just out, and right back in.
He pulled himself to the threshold, inching out of the safety of his ship. He switched his grip to a handle on his left, and reached back to double-check his tether. Then he leaned his booted toes over the edge. The trooper was only three meters away. All he had to do was push himself out.
Ready… one, two, three!
His limbs refused to respond.
He stared
out at the trooper.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and forced his fingers to push. With the slightest of jerks, he floated free into open space.
He fixed his eyes on the trooper. Reaching out, he managed to grab the assault rifle and pull. His suit collided gently with the black, armored surface, and he wrapped his arms frantically around it. His momentum slowed the tumbling, but started to push them both away from the Hawk.
His breath was quick and shallow, his arms like a vise around his prize. His body felt weak from the exertion, and it seemed as if everything hurt.
There was a sharp jerk at his midsection as his tether reached its full extent. He gasped as he thought he might lose his grip, but his arms held. He and the trooper were held fast to the Hawk.
He did nothing for a moment. Then, with a slow, terrifying movement, he let go of the trooper with one arm and reached back to grab his tether. A single tug, and they were floating back toward the airlock.
His armored prize fit easily through the opening, and only as he gently pushed the trooper to the inside bulkhead did he realize how small the suit was. Grey dust stuck to patches of a dark liquid that was splattered across at least half the surface area. As the door closed and the airlock was pressurized, Jack took a moment to look through the visor, dreading what he might see.
Eyes closed, cheeks pale, it was Rapier’s strike officer.
Jack’s breath caught in his throat.
She was breathing.
The airlock light switched to green. He opened the inner door and gently pushed her through into the Hawk. Then he opened his faceplate, and reached to open hers. Unlike standard-issue Astral spacesuits, the armored trooper suits didn’t have brightly lit displays on their chests. They wouldn’t exactly be helpful during a sneak attack.
He carefully unlocked her faceplate—it slid up easily. Decoupling a glove to free his hand, he reached in gingerly to place the back of his fingers against her cheek. Her skin was cool, but not unnaturally so. He moved his hand to hover before her nose. He felt the gentle warmth of breath against his fingers.
Suddenly her eyes fluttered open. She was dazed for a second, then her gaze locked onto his.
“Hi,” he said. “Good to see you alive.” The words came out awkwardly through his bruised lips.
She tried to scramble backward, but her movements were clumsy in the zero-g. Jack pushed away, floating backward to give her space.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe.”
She bumped into the aft bulkhead, eyes darting in all directions. With a swift motion she hauled in her free-floating assault rifle and brought it to bear.
He threw up his hands. “Whoa, whoa! I’m Astral Force! My name’s Jack Mallory! I’m a pilot!”
Her gaze took him in, and she lowered her rifle. He saw the light of recognition ignite her dark eyes. Incredibly, she laughed.
“Jack the pilot.” Her voice was very soft. “You look like shit, Jack.” She looked around again, visibly relaxing. “Where the hell are we?”
He lowered his hands, shaking from the shock of nearly getting shot.
“This is Viking-Two, the Hawk from Kristiansand. We’re in low-Laika orbit.”
She shivered, and her gaze became distant. “The battle?”
“It ended about twenty-four hours ago. I’m just part of the cleanup—I mean, recovery team.”
“What happened?”
He motioned her toward the cockpit. “Come have a look. Maybe you can tell me a thing or two.”
He pushed forward and strapped back into his seat. She appeared over his left shoulder, anchoring herself with a hand on his seat. Together they looked out at the orbital battlefield, and the Laikan dawn far below.
“The Centauri battle cruiser,” she said.
“Yeah, abandoned. Strange, because it’s still in one piece. Not like some of the other Centauri ships.”
She was silent for a long moment. He looked up at her. She looked very tired.
“What about Rapier?” she asked suddenly.
Jack hated to be the messenger.
“Word is she went down,” he said. “Burned up over Laika. Sorry. But both her pods were recovered, with about half the crew alive.”
“Both pods made it back?” Her expression was unreadable.
“Yeah.”
Her pale face sagged, so tiny in the armored helmet. Her dark eyes shone with moisture and she pushed back, out of Jack’s view.
He moved his gaze across the visual, his flight controls. and his hunt controls. Everything was nominal. He set the Hawk into motion again, easing to starboard to resume his search pattern. His patrol was due to last another half-hour, but he suspected he should get her back to Kristiansand.
He turned his seat, looking back to ask if she was feeling okay.
She was floating in the cargo area, curled up as tightly as her heavy suit would allow. Her gloves were off and her bare hands were clenched together against the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were tightly shut and her face was locked in a grimace, jerking with each silent sob.
He turned away, and activated his comms.
“Longboat, Viking-Two. I have recovered a Terran survivor from the battle, and request permission to return to Mother immediately.”
There was the slightest of pauses before the response came.
“Viking-Two, confirm… you have a survivor?”
“That’s affirmative.” Jack suddenly realized that he couldn’t remember her name. “One survivor.”
25
Kristiansand’s sickbay was bigger than Katja’s cabin in Rapier, but the curtains around her bunk made her claustrophobic.
She hadn’t minded the curtain that hid her from the door to the main passageway while the ship’s medic helped her out of her armored suit, sent her sour clothes to be laundered, and gave her an exam. But after a few hours of lying strapped on the tiny bunk, unable to sleep as her mind struggled to process the wild imagery flashing through her brain, she felt trapped.
So she unstrapped herself and pushed up off the bed.
Then she grabbed for a sick bag and heaved painfully. She steadied herself, breathing heavily. Her body throbbed with heat.
Her hand slipped in its own sweat and she reached out to steady herself again. Fleet doctrine required that any artificial gravity be switched off in wartime, but enough time in Rapier had made zero-g second nature to her. Her nausea eased, and she moved to collect her clothes. The routine motion helped to focus her thoughts and push away the images.
She was handling it better this time.
The rest of sickbay was empty, the lights dimmed to conserve power, and Katja exited into the main passageway. This was her first time aboard a destroyer, and here too, the lights were duller than the gleaming white she was used to in Normandy, although brighter than the shadows of Rapier. Likewise, the rectangular-shaped passageway was tighter than Normandy’s broad avenues, but less constricted than Rapier’s honeycombs.
A few Kristiansand crewmembers were moving carefully along the passageway, never straying more than a few centimeters from the security of the continuous railing fixed to the bulkhead. Katja pushed out easily into the corridor, then put up a hand to slow the first sailor she saw. His rank indicated that he was a trooper, or the Fleet equivalent.
“Rating,” she said, “where can I find the ship’s officers?”
He frowned, barely looking away from his careful, handover-hand movement. “How the hell would I know?”
His insolence shocked her, and he was nearly past before she recovered. She braced herself against the deckhead with one hand, and with the other grabbed the material of his coveralls at the shoulder.
“Stop right there, Rating.”
He was a fairly big man, and he pulled away as he turned. “Get your hand off me.”
She released him, but glared down from her superior height.
“Rating, I’m new on board, because my ship was destroyed. In case the blue cover
alls fooled you, let me point out the strike qualification on my chest, and allow me to add that I’m not in a very good fucking mood.” She let that sink in, and continued. “I need to speak to your officers. So humor me and tell me which way I need to go to find them.”
His expression remained dark, but he pointed back the way he had come. “The wardroom is up that way, starboard side. The bridge is all the way forward… ma’am.”
“Thank you. Carry on.”
She turned and pushed herself forward with a long, graceful motion, leaving the petulant crewman behind. She’d forgotten how lax discipline was in the Fleet, and felt a sudden constriction in her chest as she remembered the cool professionalism of Rapier’s crew.
She suddenly realized how much she wanted to see them again: although not as much as she wanted to see her troopers. Her mind clouded with the visual image of Hernandez being shot to pieces by the Centauri APR, and the quantum-flux image of Assad and Jackson meeting the same fate. Chang had lost at least one of his troopers, and Katja prayed that the others had made it out.
What was she thinking, boarding a Centauri battle cruiser? Her last image of Rapier, plummeting downward in a cone of flame and smoke, held her in thrall for a moment. She shook it off, wondering if she was insane. Trying to impress a man who was already dead instead of getting her troops to safety. Acting on instinct instead of thought, her father would say.
The wardroom door was closed. Katja swung down and righted herself, looking for any sort of DO NOT ENTER sign. Seeing none, she slid open the door and floated through.
It was standing room only in the dim light of the officers’ mess. Katja barely had room to let the door shut behind her before she was bumping into the crowd. Young faces turned to look at her with surprise—she was facing the handful of subbies who always crowded in at the back of a briefing. Jack the Pilot was among them, and she nodded. He grinned back as best he could through his bruised and oddly misshapen features, and pulled himself aside to make room for her.
Virtues of War Page 19